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The world of Ilkor: Dark Rising

In 2011 I was commissioned to create a map of the world of Ilkor for the browser game Ilkor: Dark Rising. The brief was to use a style inspired by the classic Middle Earth maps. Recently GAD Games have released a few of the detail views that I did for them so I get to show them off! I'll have to wait a little for the full world map to be released, but for now, here's the detail views.

Every commission has it's challenges, and in this one it was trying to get the painterly strokes for the features - and drawing all those sea lines by hand. I really got comfortable with the new dynamic brushes in Photoshop on this commission, something I'll be using more of in the future.

A lot of the border work was done by another guy over at GAD for the game, but it really worked well integrated with the map. I'm dead chuffed with how this came out. It's always a relief to see a new map style come together.

Those sea lines must have taken quite a bit of time. I'd say you accomplished your goal though, these maps certainly do hearken back to those of Middle Earth. I also really like your choice of fonts and other accoutrements. Lovely work!

It never gets old to see your work... I am just glad that I can rep you again. I love the water lines and mountains but the trees are what sell these maps! It is so hard for me to draw trees that are "shapeless" and still look like trees. The type of tree you used is "no joke" and takes practice and skill to pull off. "not just round with a stem"